The present invention relates to a pawl for a ratchet wrench and, more particularly, to a pawl with additional teeth, dirt accommodating and friction reducing features and specifically configured pockets.
Most ratchet wrenches have a pawl with teeth on a front face to engage teeth on a ratchet gear and a pair of pockets on a back face to engage a detent means mounted in a blind bore in the handle and communicating with the pawl opening. The assembly of the wrench usually requires special tooling to retain the ball and spring detent means within the blind bore when the pawl is being inserted into the pawl opening. Additionally, when dirt enters the opening in the head of the wrench, pawl motion is impaired and the teeth are unable to fully engage, reducing the torque capacity of the ratchet.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,261,233, 4,631,988 and 5,000,066 disclose ratchet wrenches with different types of pawls and detent means which are known to persons skilled in the art. All of these pawls accumulate dirt which can cause damage to the pawl and the ratchet gear when the ratchet is loaded.